Smeg FAB fridges get more street cred with Thierry Noir’s hand painted series

The French-born Noir, who is now a Berlin resident came into the limelight in the early 1980s when he used the Berlin Wall as a canvas for his distinctive style and artistic expression. Each day, for five years, Noir painted the wall with his bold, cartoon-like characters to show the structure as an ugly mutation of a once great city.

Noir was commissioned to paint the exterior of the inner city Sydney warehouse residence belonging to John Winning, founder of Appliances Online. A temporary setback on account of local council approval issues gave Noir sufficient time to paint Smeg’s FAB fridges. Each of the six FAB32 fridges took Noir a full day to complete.

His Berlin Wall experience when he had to work quickly to avoid being shot at by GDR patrol guards, honed his unique style of simple figures created from one continuous line in a few bright, bold colours. He labelled this style ‘Fast Form Manifest’.

The six Smeg FAB fridges have been hand-painted in this unique style. Noir’s iconic cartoon-like artwork works in perfect harmony with the unmistakable personality of Smeg’s FAB fridges, which are now destined to become collectors’ items.